Jaguar could get the green light to build an FIA GT3 race version of its F-type R coupé before Christmas.

The project is sufficiently advanced for Jaguar to have whittled the shortlist of potential development partners down to just three race teams; all that is required is the rubber-stamp of top-level bosses.

Should that be forthcoming, the plan would be to have a car testing by the middle of next year and making its race debut less than a year from now.

“The fact is that Jaguar is the only one of the premium brands without an active race programme at present,” said a source close to the project, “and that needs correcting, especially given its rich competition heritage”.

The thinking at Jaguar is to largely out-source the project to the successful partner in the same way as Bentley has done with Malcolm Wilson's M Sport operation and, indeed, as Jaguar did with TWR in its halcyon racing days of the late 1980s and 1990s.

Jaguar has also noted the considerable commercial success of Aston Martin's customer GT4 programme and does not rule out going down a similar route with a much more affordable racing F-type should the GT3 project prove successful.

I don't think Jag should look back at its racing heritage and think its right for them to go back into racing. the key ingredients were there in those old racing cars that made them a success but when Jag pulled out of racing to manufacture road cars, they lost touch of the pace of development done by competitors so when they returned, their modified e-type wasn't up to scratch with the competition. they tried with F1 with little success and with the 2006 XK which i haven't heard any big news about that either. If Jag is serious about this then they need to partner with someone who know how the competition works. their SVO department IMHO is a disappointment, as they could have potentially used that department as a stepping stone into full on racing but all we got out of SVO was something that a couple of guys in a garage could do.

Bit harsh to be too critical of the SVO setup just yet. It is still new, and they need to be profitable before they start throwing vast piles of money into bigger projects.

Motor racing for the current generation at Jaguar is an all-new experience. Their racing heritage is all a long time ago, and most of it outsourced to external organisations (Stewart F1, TWR, etc). So they are starting from scratch. It will take time, but hopefully they do it sensibly rather than repeating their approach to the F1 project.